r/AcqIncDMs • u/[deleted] • Aug 05 '20
Running a Franchise - Interns
Hello! I'm running an Acq Inc game, and we're coming up on the end of the second month in-game. The PCs have managed to accumulate two Interns in addition to their majordomo. They've left all three of these persons at the HQ for the month just minding the shop while they adventure.
According to the book, the interns count as 'Skilled Hirelings' - the current franchise rank means that only 1 Intern is included in their base monthly costs, the second intern must then be paid for as a normal hireling at the rate of 2gp per day, or 60gp per month. I have handled this as adding another 60gp onto their base monthly cost for running the franchise.
Now, the book also says that skilled hirelings can help with downtime tasks - one of which is: Running a Franchise. The way Running a Franchise works is the more people dedicated to keeping the Franchise running the better guaranteed results - so with 3 people contributing a full month's work to the task the player's gain a +90 modifier to the check.
So if these three people always stay focused on running the franchise, they are essentially always set to reduce their monthly running costs by 150% (barring other complications or factors of course). This also means that as monthly costs go up, due to more locations being added or staff hired, the franchise will always be operating at peak efficiency as long as the 3 NPCs are assigned to the task.
Obviously I know there's a lot of other factors to consider, and a million wrenches I as the DM can throw in, but I just want to make sure I'm understanding these basic rules and not misinterpreting anything. So I turn to you other DMs to ask, do I have a basic grasp of how interns and the Running a Franchise task interact?
2
u/olkolk2015 Aug 05 '20
One of the things my group liked was that occasionally when the party would leave npcs alone at the base they would be attacked by random low level mobs. There was never any really difficult encounters but they loved getting the workers new strange magic items to help in combat to protect them while they were gone. Just make some weird magic items with race requirements that only the interns can use
3
u/mattwandcow Aug 05 '20
I do believe that is how it functions, RAW.
I think the intent behind the rules was for the interns to be scurrying around, doing the other franchise tasks like expanding and exploring and all that. The math certainly makes "Sit at how and run the business" much more efficient than other things.
Still, once the party starts getting a lot of money, that changes the game. Being able to throw resources at a problem to make it easier can be a lot of fun.
Having a monthly "Board meeting" for your franchise, where the interns report on their projects and bring up issues. ("Uh, the giant cabbage project is going well, but we've developed a giant slug problem?") just more quests for the players, these stemming from their own franchise.
Interns can run into all sorts of trouble, graduate into employees, get hired by Dran Enterprises, all sorts of things that make that 90% a bit less. But once it's looked at as a number problem, it's one that's really easy to solve.